TTP Media’s CFNV 940 AM begins on-air testing

After occasional sputters of an audible tone a few hours a day over a few weeks, 940 AM has actual audio for the first time in almost seven years as TTP Media’s first AM radio station has officially begun testing.

The programming consists of music in English and French, with a 23-second announcement about the station about every 15 minutes confirming its callsign of CFNV and asking people with reception issues to call 1-855-732-5940. It says the station will launch “progressivement sous peu” or “très bientôt” (the message varies slightly).

CFNV will be a French-language talk station when it launches, which the CRTC has said it must do by Nov. 21. The licence was first authorized in 2011, and the deadline extended three times (one more than usual).

The deadline to launch an English station at 600 AM passed on Nov. 9. The CRTC confirms to me it has received an application for an extension to that deadline (which was supposed to be final) but has not made a decision yet.

940 AM, which is assigned to Montreal as a clear channel, so this station will have a very large footprint at night, was last used by AM 940, a Corus-owned station that began as 940 News and kept cutting resources and changing formats until it finally shut down in 2010.

13 thoughts on “TTP Media’s CFNV 940 AM begins on-air testing”

Another pathetic stillborn broadcasting misadventure. Listeners need a good reason to tune a new radio station. Music isn’t it. Advertising isn’t it. Generic feelgood talk isn’t it. What remains? POV, evangelical or community. There’s no room for another radio station with nothing original to say. Plenty of those.

Yes, don’t confuse this on-air testing…Actually surprised that you thought this was the real thing…As for original things to say, if you’re referring to CJAD, I agree and suspect others as well….With the damaging Bell Media cuts almost two years ago..

‘AD has lost its fire in the belly, they don’t break out news scoops any more…

In other words, they’ve have gotten complacent..and some hosts still think they’re the almighty defenders of the anglo community, that famous anglo angst..

Jim… Bell Media has attempted to evolve their stations into barebones corporate money making machines. All their stations have lost their lustre of years ago. With Bell Media, it’s all about corporate self branding, cross promotion and cross media. Not much is local any more. One Bell Media station is like listening to any other. Locally, CJAD has dumped many of their high profile on-air personalities and replaced them with local media “hangers-on” looking for a job. Also, way too many boring personalities and infomercials disguised as actual programming. With the likes of Evan Soloman, Kevin O’Leary, Laurie Betitto and George Noory among others, it is difficult for me to listen to this station any more.
I welcome a new local alternative to CJAD. Even if they do not survive, at least it will inspire CJAD to pick up their pants.

I make it a rule not to criticize local media. The market should be the only arbiter of what sells. Where I have a problem is with the monopolies and their enablers in the federal and provincial bureaucracies who together decide what lives and what dies. One example: for 65 years our families ran the Hudson Gazette, a well-read and respected English community weekly. We closed it two years ago, following a Federal Competition Bureau decision that let Transcontinental dictate terms for our continued survival. Same story in radio and television. Canadians think they’re being well served by their media. They aren’t. The owners engage in activities that would be considered as a criminal conspiracy in the U.S. And they have the support of complicit governments.

WEll this answers the questions, many of them anyways…Have you heard yet of any site for a studio….and staff poaching or if CJAD and 98.5 is starting to get scared and adjusting their progrmming…
I’ve noticed changes in CJAD’s weekend schedule and it’s really terrible..

I think for the purposes of being on the air, the “studio” location may be nothing more than a small room with a PC in the back of a real estate office. They have a very hard deadline (Monday) to be actually live with a commercial station.

Longer term, they will need a reasonable to studio space if they want to not only be a talk station, but one that important people are willing to come to for interviews and such. If they are also planning to get 600AM up and running as well, they will likely need enough space to run both.